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Inside Iowa State, a newspaper for faculty and staff, is published by
the Office of University Relations.

June 7, 2007

A sesquicentennial look back

The seed corn evangelist

by Diana Pounds

Perry Holden discusses corn germination tests on the
Seed Corn Gospel Train that traversed Iowa in the early 1900s.Photo from University Archives.

If your topic is corn, you might need a little charisma to keep your
audience. By all accounts, Iowa State professor Perry Holden had more
than his share.

The Iowa State agronomist's 1902 short course for farmers became so
popular that he had to add extra sessions that started at 5 a.m. Farmers
flocked to campus to hear Holden corn talk.

Soon, Holden hatched the idea of taking his classroom to the
farmers. In 1903, he teamed with Sioux County farmers and the county
government to set up a demonstration farm in the northwest part of the
state. It would mark the beginnings of cooperative extension work.

A year later, Holden, with the help of the railroads, put his
classroom on wheels. Several train cars outfitted with speakers'
platforms and charts became what Holden would refer to as the "Seed Corn
Gospel Train."

Holden traveled the state, teaching farmers how to select and test
corn to get the best seed. The novel teaching technique caught on and
soon educational trains, offering expertise on all kinds of agricultural
topics, were rolling throughout the nation.

Holden became the first director of Iowa Extension in 1906 -- eight years
before Congress created the national extension program.

"I follow the principle that all people in the state are, in reality,
students of the college," Holden once said. "Therefore, we must go to
them and help them where they are, under their own conditions, with
their own problems."

Quote

"I follow the principle that all people in the state are in reality
students of the college. Therefore, we must go to them and help them
where they are, under their own conditions, with their own problems."

Perry Holden

Sesqui series

Inside is running a yearlong series of photos and articles
that look back at Iowa State traditions, people and places to celebrate
the sesquicentennial.